The Cleveland Browns have been in the news this week, and not because of newfound success on the gridiron. While sports is not among my highest priorities, I have developed increasing interest over the years since professional sports is religion to so many here in Cleveland and in Ohio. Cleveland sports teams all enjoy great success, provided that success is not defined by victories. It’s not if you win or lose but how… I watched the Cleveland Browns compete against the Pittsburgh Steelers two Thursdays ago. I cringed as I witnessed our young quarterback, Colt McCoy, take a blow to the head that could have landed the perpetrator a 10 year prison sentence had this act occurred on the street. I wasn’t worried that McCoy would have to miss the rest of the game. I feared that he might have to miss the rest of his life. Violence sells tickets.

If an activity requires a participant to don a helmet and a coat of armor, then clearly it is an unwise activity for a human to engage in.

McCoy was taken off the field and reentered the arena 2 plays later, after an exhaustive evaluation that was completed in about 100 seconds. Since everything in sports and medicine is now measured, we know that McCoy was sidelined for a total of Read more »

Anyone who’s ever watched football, the American variety, knows how rough of a sport it can be. With 22 fast-moving players (some weighing as much as 350 pounds) scrambling and tackling for possession of the pigskin, injuries are inevitable.

One of the scariest injuries a football player can get is a concussion. With its commonly insidious onset, concussions of the brain are often difficult to diagnose, or immediately treat to avoid long-term consequences.

The National Football League (NFL) has announced that they will be launching a pilot program next season in which accelerometers will be placed in players’ mouthpieces, earpieces, and helmets to analyze how blows to the head relate to the effects and severity of concussions and other traumatic brain injuries. The data could potentially help team doctors diagnose the severity of a concussion within a few minutes. Collected long-term from groups of players, the impact data could help coaches and doctors determine how players get injured and the possible effects of such injuries. Such data could also help engineers design a better football helmet.

As long as the game of football continues to be played, concussions will be pretty much impossible to avoid. However, changing technology and increasing knowledge of traumatic brain injury will hopefully only make football a safer, more enjoyable sport.

Last November, the National Football League devoted the entire month to breast cancer awareness. Players like Reggie Bush wore pink gloves, armbands, even shoes, to promote efforts to fight the disease.

There were some heartwarming moments. Players brought their mothers, grandmothers, and other women who’d battled breast cancer to the games, all of them wearing attractive pink game-day jerseys. Announcers told their own stories of “courageous” battles against the disease waged by friends and family members.

It’s powerful and inspiring, these overpaid hulks of manhood showing they’re secure enough in their masculinity to don feminine-ish garb to support their sisters and mothers.

But try to imagine the NFL — or any sports league — launching a similar campaign to fight HIV and AIDS. Which player would trot out a brother, sister, or father who’s HIV positive? Which television announcer would proudly point to the afflicted and speak of their “inspirational” battle with HIV?

In an NPR interview last week, Theresa Skipper talked about why she concealed her HIV diagnosis for 19 years: Read more »

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